Billionaire Kevin O'Leary, known as Mr. Wonderful on Shark Tank, is facing serious backlash around the $100 billion Stratos data center project he's backing in rural Utah.
The project has been making headlines after being approved by Box Elder County's three-person commission, despite protests from angry residents who strongly oppose the 40,000-acre data center.
O'Leary has been making the media rounds defending the controversial data center that will reportedly need 9 gigawatts of electricity, more than twice Utah's entire current consumption.
While on Fox Business, O'Leary wasn't being very "wonderful" when he called out two Utah residents for being Chinese operatives.
O'Leary said, "We found two cells inside of Utah. Elevate Strategies, Gabi Finlayson. Gabi, what are you doing? And who's paying you? So what I'm doing right now is, after getting this data, I'm calling out Gabi, operating in Utah."
That news obviously came as a shock to Gabi Finlayson, who, along with her Elevate Strategies partner, Jackie Morgan, posted a wonderful response on Instagram to the billionaire's wild claims.
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"Hi, hello, it's me, Gabi Finlayson. What am I doing?" Finlayson said while they both laughed. "Apparently, we've reached the part of the Stratos data center journey where Kevin O'Leary goes on national Fox News to accuse us of being cells for the Chinese Communist Party."
Finlayson continued, "It's not every day you get called out by first and last name on Fox News by a Canadian billionaire trying to ruin my state, but here we are."
Morgan then added, "Kevin, are you OK?"
The video cuts back and forth between O'Leary's appearance on Fox Business and Finlayson and Morgan sitting at a desk in front of a large map of Utah.
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O'Leary continued his unfounded assertions, saying, "I want a forensic audit of who's funding their platforms. Who is it? So these are proxies for the Chinese government is my argument."
Morgan responded, saying, "OK, Kevin, go ahead," before Finlayson added, "Mr. Wonderful's Nancy Drew little detective agency — have at it, brother. Because if we were Chinese operatives, we would be the worst operatives in the entire world. Someone alert Beijing that the payment portal to Jackie and I's AmEx bills is somehow broken."
Morgan went on to point out that they run Democratic campaigns in Utah, not really a job known for high-paying salaries.
"If we were in this to be making money, we would be doing literally anything else," Morgan joked before addressing O'Leary directly. "And you should know that, because your job is to give small business owners advice."
Finlayson and Morgan did not hold back with their brutal response.
"But sure, let's do the thing that all men who are scared and have no actual facts do, which is accuse women who have a fully-formed thought of being the problem, and being Chinese operatives" Finlayson said. "What are we talking about? How are we making this video right now? It's so unserious."
What is serious is the data center, which could cause serious problems in a state already dealing with environmental issues. Robert Davies, a physics professor at Utah State University, said that, in addition to the 9 gigawatts of power the data center would consume, it could also release 7 to 8 gigawatts of heat that would remain in the Hansel Valley. Davies said it would be the same as about "23 atom bombs."
Utah residents are not alone in opposing a data center being built in their community. People across the country are making their voices heard, raising concerns over the massive amounts of energy and water needed to run these data centers. Many are already dealing with the repercussions of having a data center in their backyard.
Finlayson and Morgan echoed the sentiment that's being shared by communities across the country.
"We don't need Kevin to teach us to care about Utah," Morgan said. "We're the ones that actually love this state, and that is why we care about it's future. And we care about this data center, and what it could do to the future of our state."
Finlayson added, "We are worried about the Great Salt Lake, we are worried about our carbon emissions, we are worried about our electrical grid, we are worried about the temperatures rising in our state. We care about the economic, environmental future of our state."
While the two shared some very serious concerns, they also had to laugh as they refuted the ridiculous claims made by Mr. Wonderful.
"For the record, and I never thought I would have to say this in my entire adult life, we are not Chinese foreign operatives, being paid by the Chinese government," Morgan concluded.
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